Professional Documents
Culture Documents
alaysia
has
an
equatorial climate
with constant high
temperatures and high
relative humidity. The climate is
influenced by the northeast and
southwest monsoons. The former,
prevailing between November and
February, brings heavy rainfall (as
much as 600 mm in 24 hours in
extreme cases) predominantly to the
east coast of Peninsular Malaysia and
to Sabah and Sarawak. Rain bearing
winds also comes with the southwest
monsoon from April to September,
though rainfalls during this period are
generally less than during the
northeast monsoon. There are, in
addition, two transitional periods
between the monsoons (intermonsoon) when convectional
thunderstorms are common.
The annual average rainfall is
2,420 mm for Peninsular Malaysia,
2,630 mm for Sabah and 3,830 mm
for Sarawak, with heavier
precipitation recorded in the east
coast of Peninsular Malaysia and the
coastal regions of Sabah and
Sarawak.
There are two basic types of
rainfall causing flooding viz. (i)
moderate intensity, long-duration
rainfall covering a wide area; and (ii)
high intensity, short-duration
localised rainfall. In addition, flood
records indicate that there is a
seasonal pattern of flood occurrences.
The east coast and the southern part
of Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah and
Sarawak are mainly affected by floods
during December to January when the
northeast monsoon is prevailing.
Flooding occurs due to widespread
prolonged heavy rainfall resulting in
a large concentration of runoff which
is very much in excess of the
BULETIN INGENIEUR
38
BULETIN INGENIEUR
39
feature
Permanent Flood
Control Commission
The Permanent Flood Control
Commission was established by a
Cabinet decision on December 21,
1971 to study short-term measures to
prevent the occurrence of floods and
long-term measures for flood
mitigation. The Commission, in its
first sitting, drew up the following
terms of reference:
feature
STRUCTURAL MEASURES
(ENGINEERING SOLUTIONS)
BULETIN INGENIEUR
40
Bunding Of Rivers
Bunding of rivers prevents
overtopping and flooding of the lowlying adjacent areas. This option may
give rise to problems of internal
drainage as a result of the bunding.
Bunding an urban area introduces
high flood damage potential, as any
occurrence of flooding as a result of
flood water overtopping or breaching
the bund would be very damaging.
Storage Ponds Of
Flood Attenuation
Ponds such as disused mining
pools can be used for flood storage.
The objective is to divert the flood
water through such ponds and thus
regulate the outflow so that the flood
peaks are attenuated. This strategy
has been used in the case of Batu/
Jinjang Pond Project in Kuala Lumpur
where excess flood water is diverted
from Sg. Gombak to Batu Pond for
temporary storage and from Sg. Keroh
to Jinjang Pond. Water in the pond
will be released slowly back to the
river after the flood flow has subsided
(See Figure 1).
Poldering (Ring Bund)
Poldering is the provision of a ring
bund surrounding the area to be
protected. This is normally carried out
for an area which has high damage
potential but for which the cost on
overall basin-wide protection would
be prohibitive. It includes the
provision of internal drainage for the
area to be protected and the
evacuation of flood water by pumping
during periods of high river flows.
The present strategy of using
structural flood control measures such
as the above has proven effective in
controlling floods and is usually the
only option available for built-up
areas. However, structural measures
usually
incorporate
hard
engineering measures that result in
bigger channels conveying high flows
at high velocities. These measures
incur high costs as well as require
substantial land reserves for the
channel.
Flood Diversion Channel Or Tunnel
Certain river stretches especially
in major city centres, due to intensive
development along both riverbanks,
feature
NON-STRUCTURAL MEASURES
(NON-ENGINEERING SOLUTIONS)
Non-structural measures are
employed more for preventing floods
from occurring and with the aim of
minimising losses due to flooding.
These measures are broadly aimed at
reducing the flood magnitude through
the management of catchment
conditions as well as reducing the
flood damage. These measures
comprise the following:
BULETIN INGENIEUR
42
feature
Figure 3 MASMA concept using control-at-source solution
BULETIN INGENIEUR
43